Victimization

"Do you feel sad and lost in desperation?
You build up hope, but failure's all you've known.
Remember all the sadness and frustration
And let it go. Let it go."




I've come to a decision. I am going to do what I can to prevent my best friend from doing something I know will not help her in the slightest. "What I can" meaning everything short of actually going up to Morningstar and warning him of her plans. Because this isn't about protecting him, it's about protecting Michelle. Not much else really needs to be said.

And Michelle, you knew from the beginning that I would be opposed, so rather than be upset with me, consider this: it would be a dream come true for that psychopath to die in the service of his master. So rather than give him the satisfaction and potentially land yourself in jail where you can't protect anyone, least of all me, get the fucker arrested for arson and multiple counts of murder. With his temperament, he'll get the death penalty for sure.

In other news, I may have to make good on my threats to Elaine, depending on what happens when Nick finally answers his goddamn cell phone. Goddammit...

-

Got into a slight argument with another blogger about this the other day. It's partially advice, but partially a rant on my part, because this is a real pet peeve of mine.

See, I have issues with people up and deciding that they are the victim of a situation. It offends what quickly became the cornerstone of my personal philosophy back when I was finding myself in high school. The quote goes like this:

The promise of God is that you are His son. Her offspring. Its likeness. His equal. Ah...here is where you get hung up. You can accept “His son,” “offspring,” “likeness,” but you recoil at being called “His equal.” It is too much to accept. Too much bigness, too much wonderment—too much responsibility. For if you are God’s equal, that means nothing is being done to you—and all things are created by you. There can be no more victims and no more villains—only outcomes of your thought about a thing.

No matter what you think about religion or god, maintaining that level of control over my surroundings is what's sustained me through... all this. It's that control that's allowed me to do things that many would consider extraordinary, but that I consider to be a mere mental exercise, one that could be easily taught to literally anyone, provided they adjust their mindset just a tad.

But that's another matter altogether. Basically, what I wanted to say is, there's a difference between "blaming the victim" as this certain blogger called it, and telling someone to assert their own control over their lives. Everyone who knows me knows that I have all the sympathy in the world for people in awful situations like this. Why else would I do what I do? I want to help people, but sometimes in order to do that, you have to tell them what they don't really want to hear.

Victimization is something in that category that particularly annoys me, because it's the hardest thing for people to get past. And unlike the above quote, I DO NOT mean to say that there are never any victims. Because there are. Sometimes things happen to a person that are completely outside that person's control, and that lack of control is probably one of, if not the most frightening thing about it.

But whether you continue to be a victim is entirely up to you.

We all have self-identifiers, labels that we assign ourselves. You can look in the mirror and think, "I am a teenage girl with blonde hair and blue eyes," or "I am a teacher who works with inner city delinquents," or "I am someone's parent, sibling, spouse, enemy, best friend." But as soon as you say to yourself, "I am a victim"... that's when you have a problem.

"Victim" is an identifier that never really goes away. It makes you feel like you have no control over your life, never will, and never did. Sometimes it can make you feel as though your entire life thus far has been a sham, if the rug can be pulled out from under your feet so easily. But more importantly, feeling like you have no control of your own makes you vulnerable to being controlled. And that is potentially more dangerous than anything else in the world.

On the other hand, someone who remembers that their actions are their own and the consequences of those actions - good and bad - are theirs to carry, is far less vulnerable. That single change of mindset is the difference between feeling like trash and thinking yourself unworthy of the support of your friends, and taking the time to cry on your best friend's shoulder because you've been wronged and you know you deserve better. It's the difference between being a victim once and subsequently being a victim again and again because you've gotten it into your head that it's your role in life to be used, and being a victim once and walking out of the situation with your head held high, knowing that you've learned from the experience and won't make the same mistakes twice. And it's the difference between latching onto the first empty promise to make the pain go away, and trusting your own ability to get past it.

Something to think about.

-

I'm getting nervous again. See, every summer around this time, my uncle takes his kids, as well as me and my brothers, up to Maine to stay in a cabin by a lake for a couple weeks. During that time, my parents usually take a vacation of their own. I've had to decline the trip to Maine this time around due to the beginning of it coinciding the last week of my job for the summer, but I now have Michelle as an additional excuse. My uncle is... not the type to invite additional people at last minute, so we told them that we were more than happy to stay home. Now though... I'm fighting the urge to board up the doors and windows.

That's the other reason I'm nervous. I still haven't seen It, not anywhere. Two weeks ago I couldn't turn a corner in Camden without catching a glimpse of it, but now it's gone without a trace. And that bothers me, in a very "Goddammit, damned if you do, damned if you don't!" kind of way. In any other circumstance, I'd be thrilled to have somehow avoided It's notice again, but after such a long period of activity, to have it suddenly stop is... unnerving.

I still can't listen to that song. But no matter how many times I try, if I try to delete it from my iTunes Library, it just freezes my computer.